Failed deal has positive effects for champion Rockets

Guards Vernon Maxwell, left, and Kenny Smith and forward Robert Horry share a group hug after the Rockets beat the New York Knicks for the first of two consecutive NBA championships.

Guards Vernon Maxwell, left, and Kenny Smith and forward Robert Horry share a group hug after the Rockets beat the New York Knicks for the first of two consecutive NBA championships.

Photo: Kerwin Plevka, HC Staff

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San Antonio Spurs Robert Horry smiles as he listens to a question during media availability for the 2005 NBA Finals in San Antonio, Texas, June 22, 2005. The Spurs will play the Detroit Pistons in Game 7 for the NBA Championship June 23. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson. HOUCHRON CAPTION (06/23/2005)(06/24/2005) SECSPTS: HORRY. less

San Antonio Spurs Robert Horry smiles as he listens to a question during media availability for the 2005 NBA Finals in San Antonio, Texas, June 22, 2005. The Spurs will play the Detroit Pistons in Game 7 for ... more

Photo: LUCY NICHOLSON

Failed deal has positive effects for champion Rockets

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It has been 20 years since the Rockets won the 1993-94 NBA title, the first major championship for the city of Houston. Throughout this season, the Chronicle will bring you stories on the figures and moments from that season.

Robert Horry saw it coming. Matt Bullard told his wife-to-be, who had dropped him off at practice that day, to stay close. The Rockets were 32-11. They had matched the greatest start to a season in NBA history (15-0). Yet, Horry and Bullard had a feeling they could be traded.

When they were right, it set off a chain of events that changed NBA history.

It turned Horry into Big Shot Bob. It helped change NBA offenses. It made the Rockets champions.

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Of all the things that contributed to the Rockets' rise as NBA champions in the 1993-94 season, the trade that never happened 20 years ago last week was essential. The Rockets agreed to send forwards Horry and Bullard to the Pistons for Sean Elliott. Horry and Bullard went to Detroit, met with the team and coaches and attended a game. But Elliott could not pass the Rockets' physical because of a kidney condition that eventually would lead to a transplant.

The trade was canceled. Elliott was despondent. Bullard was angry. Horry was determined, transforming himself into one of the keys to back-to-back Rockets titles during a weird whirlwind that began the day he sensed he would be traded.

"A lot of times people don't want to see the reality in their face," Horry said. "For me, I always saw the NBA as a business. I saw they wanted someone that was a penetrator. That wasn't my game. I was a slasher, a post-up guy, a spot-up guy. They wanted someone they felt was more creative for them. That was OK with me.

'I'm what you need'

"Sean was not happy (with the Pistons) at all. Any time a player is not happy, someone will try to sneak in and try to get that guy. Sean was a great player. He was better than me at the time. It just didn't work out in his favor.

"I wasn't happy about it. When you start off like we started off (winning the season's first 15 games), all right, we hit a little hiccup there, but I felt like everything was meshing. We had a great defensive team. Sean wasn't going to be the defensive player they wanted him to be. For me, I was like top 10 shot-blocker, top 10 steals and you get rid of me. I'm what you need."

Horry had cast himself as a role player, defending, rebounding and taking only occasional open shots created by a place on the floor with Hakeem Olajuwon. He acknowledged he did not work on becoming the sort of ball-handler who would create his own shot, believing he was fitting the role the Rockets needed.

Birth of a legend

"We needed a three in the worst way," former Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson, then an assistant coach, said. "He would have given us more scoring. We kind of traded two fours. Sean was an outstanding offensive player. We were giving up good players, but I remember thinking it was just a fit. He was very unhappy in Detroit and wanting to get back to Texas. I picked him up at the airport. He was so happy."

When Horry was told of the trade, he had decided to become a scorer, defiantly turning himself into the player the Rockets had wanted all along.

More than that, he became fearless, growing into one of the greatest clutch shooters in NBA history, a transformation he said that began when he was traded to the Pistons and sent back.

Horry's epiphany

"When I got to Detroit, I was like, 'OK, I'm going to change my whole mindset. People think of me as a defensive player. I'm going to go in there and look to score. I'm going to show I can be more than one-dimensional.' " Horry said. "My mind was open. I didn't look at it as a negative thing. A lot of guys when they get traded look at it as teams not wanting them. I looked at it as a team wanting me to help them succeed and to be better. I didn't look at it as a negative.

"I came back with a (forget)-you attitude. I said 'I'm probably the only player in the history of basketball that got traded for not shooting the ball.' There was one game I came back they told me, 'Can you pass the ball a little more.' I was like, 'No, y'all traded me for not shooting. I'm going to show you.' I came back focused on offense.

"It changed me. … I'm going to just play, have fun, enjoy the game."

Season of discontent

Horry eventually filled the same role for championship teams with the Spurs and Lakers, even hitting one of those NBA Finals buzzer-beaters against the Pistons.

Bullard returned to the Rockets but spent that season working his way back from knee surgery. He played in Greece and Atlanta before returning to Houston.

Yet as tightly associated as Bullard became with the Rockets, becoming active in the community and working television broadcasts for the past nine years, he had been happy with the trade and angry to be sent back. His wife's family is from the Detroit area. The Pistons offered a greater role than he had with the Rockets.

"I get to Detroit and Don Chaney was the coach," Bullard said. "He was my first coach with the Rockets. As soon as I got there, I went to his office. He said, 'We're so happy to have you here. We're going to run these plays for you.' I was thinking, 'you're going to run plays for me?' I went to practice, and Isiah Thomas came up to me, 'We're so glad to have you.' I was thinking, 'This is going to work out just fine.' "

Bullard and Horry were in the Pistons' Auburn Hills locker room when director of player personnel Billy McKinney told them there could be an issue with Elliott's physical. Offered a choice of sitting on the bench or in the owner's box, they went to the box and enjoyed themselves.

"It would have been like insider trading to sit on the bench," Horry said.

"Robert and I sat in the owner's suite, drank beer, ate popcorn and watched Vinnie Johnson's jersey get retired," Bullard said. "Those few days, we were in the same hotel. We ate together a bunch and talked a lot. I made the step, 'I'm a Piston. Coach wants me here. Isiah wants me here. I'm going to fit in.' Robert was (angry.) When we got the call and were told we were going back to Houston, I was mad and Robert was happy."

Elliott's misery

Elliott was miserable. He believed that concerns about his condition had led to the trade to the Pistons and understood the Rockets' issues. But he hated his time in Detroit. He believed he would fit with the Rockets, and when the trade was canceled, he decided his career was over.

"We'd been working on the trade for a few days. I had a lot of high hopes. I had David Wood on my team, and he kept telling me, 'You're going to love playing in The Summit.' I couldn't wait. I was looking forward to playing with Hakeem. It all came crashing down. It was something that didn't kill me. It made me stronger. Maybe, ultimately, it was a blessing."

Elliott finished the season with the Pistons, considered offers from the Jazz, Suns and SuperSonics and returned to the Spurs. He returned to the All-Star Game in his second season back and was a key to the Spurs' first title run in 1999.

When the Rockets won the title in the season he expected to join them, he never worried about what could have been.

"It wasn't that hard," Elliott said. "They were never my team. I figured I'd have a chance somewhere. I just wanted to resurrect my career. I was happy for them. I like Rudy Tomjanovich a lot. I played with Vernon (Maxwell). I knew Kenny (Smith). I was just happy for those guys."

All's well that ends well

Horry returned to Houston determined to be the scorer the Rockets wanted Elliott to be but insisting he was not upset.

A season later, when the Rockets traded Otis Thorpe to Portland for Clyde Drexler, Horry became the late-game power forward, a role he said he instantly knew would fall to him and would usher in the NBA trend toward range-shooting fours. But he believes none of that could have happened had the trade gone through.

"I love Sean Elliott to death, but there are things he can't do and I can do, and vice versa," Horry said. "I think if they brought him here they wouldn't have won the championship.

"I let it go. I viewed it as a couple days off and the Rockets making a huge mistake. I didn't look at it as any more than that. Bull came back and kind of held a grudge. I said it was the nature of the beast. It didn't bother me at all.

"I told Rudy, 'Dude, trust me. I knew this was a business from day one. I knew when you wouldn't pay me more than that bum (Adam Keefe) who was drafted in front of me. I ain't stupid. I'm just going to go out and prove to you I can score."

Four months later, he and Bullard celebrated a championship, but the trade was never forgotten.

Bullard and Horry kept their Pistons uniforms, a reminder of the trade that wasn't.

"I still have it hanging in my game room," Horry said. "I see it all the time."